Thursday, 12 June 2014

TweetOn no better
basis than that the political silly season has started early this year
fifteen years is an exact multiple of 5, that five is half of a number ending
in zero, and that numbers ending in zero represent whole decades, the Welsh
media have taken to indulging themselves in wall to wall coverage of the first
fifteen years of the National Assembly’s existence.

One of the
emerging themes has been that ‘people had high expectations’ of the Assembly at
the outset; the inference being that it has not lived up to said
expectations.It’s stated as though it
were fact, but I wonder what evidence there is to support the assertion,
outside the ranks of those directly involved.I’ve never seen any evidence – even anecdotal – for the claim that the
people of Wales ever really expected radical and rapid change from the new body.Healthy scepticism about how much difference
any group of politicians would ever make seems to me to be much more of a
common thread.

Certainly, the
limited economic powers devolved to the Assembly always meant that any
differences made in economic terms would – could – only ever be at the margins.Insofar as any high expectations were
mentioned, they were coming from politicians who believed that they would win
votes by talking about change which they knew that the Assembly could never
deliver; but I suspect that most electors – unless they had an axe to grind
either in favour of more powers or else of abolition – would have discounted
these because of their source.

The most
noticeable and important change hasn’t been anything which the Assembly has
done at all; it’s merely a concomitant of the Assembly’s existence.Whilst its establishment was the result of a
close poll on a low turnout, the idea of abolition is now confined to the
fringes of politics, and there is more confidence in Welsh institutions.It’s hard to divine cause and effect though –
does the existence of the Assembly boost confidence, or does a growth in
confidence boost support for the Assembly?

It’s easy to
blame Labour for the slow pace of change over the last fifteen years; they
have, after all, been in power continuously over that period.But, although the opposition parties –
particularly Plaid – have come up with some eye-catching policies for
implementation within the powers of the Assembly at election times, it would be
hard to argue honestly that these were so radical that things would be very
different today had Labour not been in power.It’s hard to be certain, of course: what would have happened under a
Welsh Government of a different hue can only ever be speculation, but given the
Assembly’s limitations, I just don’t see what would have been so very
different.

The fact that there
is no credible alternative to continued Labour Government in Wales is a problem
in itself.An alternative became
credible, briefly, in 2007, although I know that I’m far from alone in
believing that such an alternative, had it come to pass, would have been a
disaster for all concerned, and would probably have lasted only a few weeks or
months before collapsing.With the
further fragmentation of non-Labour politics in Wales, and the current
probability of a UKIP presence in the next Assembly, the idea of any coalition
not led by Labour is simply not credible at present.

I’ve seen some
criticism of Labour for this; but it really isn’t their fault that people
continue to vote for them in such numbers despite all their failings.There may be more of us unhappy with Labour
than are happy with the party, but there is no hint of a consensus around any
alternative.

Gerald Holtham
suggested recently that the answer is for Labour to provide its own opposition,
and to have more open internal debate about future direction.But effectively, that’s the way politics has
been in Wales for a very long time – the discussion which actually has most
impact on what happens is that discussion (such as it is) which happens
internally to that party, even if it isn’t always very public.The problem with that as an approach is that
the motivation for such internal discussion is usually about what’s best for
Labour, not what’s best for Wales (although, in fairness, that’s often because
those involved in such discussion don’t or can’t see the difference between
those two things).

We are left in
a position that things will continue as they are unless and until an
alternative vision for Wales is articulated in such a way that it gains more
support than Labour’s ‘vision’ (or lack of).In the absence of electoral support for radical change, we are left
with the sort of small, timid, incremental change which is all that is on offer;
and it’s difficult to argue that the best way of achieving that is other than
through the Labour Party.The Assembly
facilitates such an approach, with no Tory governments to reverse policies –
and perhaps that’s enough to justify its first fifteen years.It’s not a very exciting future to look
forward to though.

"But at the heart of all the problems in Wales is poor education." "But poorly educated people tend to vote Labour or Plaid."

Two very sweeping assertions for which I doubt you can produce any hard evidence. But then, if we were all as well-educated as you, we wouldn't need to bother with substantiating what we say, because we would, of course, 'know' that we were right (and we'd vote differently as well). How I envy the advantages which your superior education has bestowed upon you.

No, you don't need to "produce 'hard evidence' about the quality of education here in Wales", and I didn't say that you did. I'll accept that as a given. But you do need to justify the statements that "at the heart of all the problems in Wales is poor education" and that "poorly educated people tend to vote Labour or Plaid", which are completely different. And I haven't said anything that could lead you to the wholly incorrect assertion that I am not concerned about the quality of education in Wales. Unfortunately, my education, unlike yours, was obviously not good enough to teach me how to reach sweeping conclusions without following any path of logic or reasoning. Sad really.